April 1, 2010

A Few Thoughts On The Ocean State

While April 1st is a traditional day for Tom foolery, yesterday may not have been the best day to be poking fun at Rhode Island's weather. They have had entirely too much weather there lately.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm taking this week off from work and have been mostly hibernating - on the boat for a few days and back at home. I've been out of touch with my usual sources of news - blissfully so, for the most part. When you work for a newspaper, sometimes it's not a real vacation unless you unplug from the news, too.

So, when I wrote yesterday's post the night before I knew only vaguely that there was 'some flooding' in New England and had no idea just how badly Rhode Island had been affected. I didn't get caught up until long after I posted and wrote a few comments.

I've learned from some secret sources that everyone's favorite Rhode Island Laser sailor is probably dry and OK. But it still wasn't my most brilliant idea to be ragging on the Ocean State yesterday. The only bright note may be that there's a lot more opportunity for boating there this week than usual.

In my years as a news photographer, I had more than ample opportunity to slog through flood waters and see the misery they can bring on their victims. The emotional devastation lingers long after the waters recede.

I hope no one took offense at what was in my post, but if so, I apologize for that.

Where is O Dock?

For the literal minded, O Dock is in Berkeley, California, where I keep an old Catalina 30, but O Dock is really more a state of mind. It's where a part of me lives whenever I can't actually be sailing.